Slaves of Religion Around the World

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Slaves of Religion Around the World

Introduction

Throughout human history, religion, political power, and economic systems have often evolved side by side. In many historical periods, religious institutions were not merely spiritual centers, but also massive economic structures that owned land, accumulated wealth, controlled labor systems, maintained militias, and held thousands of enslaved human beings under their authority.

The recently published book Slaves of Religion, by Brazilian historian Vitor Hugo Monteiro Franco, sheds light on one of the darkest and least discussed chapters of religious history in Brazil: the slaveholding systems administered by Catholic orders such as the Benedictines, Jesuits, and Carmelites.

Research conducted within the archives of the Order of Saint Benedict revealed a sophisticated structure of human, economic, and spiritual control in which men, women, and children were officially classified as “slaves of religion.” The expression was not symbolic or metaphorical. It represented a legal and social category formally recorded in ecclesiastical documents during Brazil’s colonial and imperial eras.

The subject, however, extends far beyond Brazil.

Across South America, North America, Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean, religious institutions participated—directly or indirectly—in the Atlantic slave trade, plantation economies, indigenous labor systems, and the theological legitimization of human bondage. Monasteries, churches, missions, convents, and religious orders accumulated enormous wealth through forced labor while simultaneously preaching spiritual salvation, obedience, and submission.

Investigating the phenomenon of the “slaves of religion” is not merely an exercise in revisiting the past. It raises profound questions about morality, institutional hypocrisy, colonialism, structural racism, and the use of faith as a mechanism of social domination. At the same time, it reveals how religion could function both as an instrument of oppression and, in certain contexts, as a space of cultural resistance and spiritual survival for enslaved populations.

Slaves of Religion: The Religious Slave System in Brazil

The Discovery of the Term “Slaves of Religion”

One of the most significant contributions of Vitor Hugo Monteiro Franco’s work was demonstrating that the term “slaves of religion” officially existed in nineteenth-century ecclesiastical records.

While researching the archives of the São Bento plantation in Iguassú, located in Rio de Janeiro’s Baixada Fluminense region, Franco discovered baptismal records in which enslaved individuals were classified not as “slaves of the Benedictines,” but specifically as “slaves of religion.”

This distinction is historically and sociologically profound.

An enslaved person belonging to a private landowner was subordinated to an individual. A “slave of religion,” however, belonged to a permanent, collective, highly organized institution. This created a continuous system of surveillance—bureaucratic, efficient, and deeply institutionalized.

According to Franco, the monks maintained detailed records concerning:

  • births;
  • marriages;
  • illnesses;
  • deaths;
  • labor productivity;
  • family relationships;
  • religious behavior;
  • levels of obedience.

Religion regulated nearly every aspect of life:

  • labor;
  • sexuality;
  • reproduction;
  • morality;
  • diet;
  • daily rituals;
  • access to freedom.

The Catholic Church and Slaveholding Economic Power

Slaveholding Religious Orders

The principal slaveholding religious orders in Brazil included:

  • Benedictines;
  • Jesuits;
  • Carmelites;
  • Franciscans (to a lesser extent).

The numbers were staggering.

According to the research presented:

  • the Jacarepaguá plantation held more than 300 enslaved individuals;
  • Campos dos Goytacazes plantations reached approximately 700;
  • the Benedictines controlled nearly 4,000 enslaved people by 1871.

This placed the Order of Saint Benedict above much of Brazil’s traditional agrarian elite.

They were not simply major landowners.

They were mega-landowners.

Religion and Absolute Control

The “Priest-Planter”

One of the most disturbing aspects of the system was the figure known as the “priest-planter.”

This religious administrator simultaneously:

  • managed plantation finances;
  • supervised punishments;
  • maintained records;
  • celebrated Mass;
  • baptized children;
  • conducted marriages;
  • presided over funerals.

The same individual who administered sacraments also oversaw systems of coercion.

Spirituality became inseparable from economic power.

Enslaved people were required to:

  • attend Mass;
  • learn Catholic catechism;
  • participate in religious rituals;
  • abandon African spiritual traditions;
  • submit to ecclesiastical authority.

Religious refusal or resistance could result in severe punishment.

Reproduction Policies and Population Engineering

Religious orders quickly realized that relying solely on the transatlantic slave trade was economically risky.

As a result, they developed internal policies encouraging the reproduction of the enslaved population.

According to historian Robson Pedrosa Costa:

  • women who bore six children sometimes received privileges;
  • some were exempted from heavy labor;
  • in certain periods, promises of eventual emancipation were offered.

This reveals a highly organized institutional policy of population management.

Religious slavery operated with the logic of a rationalized corporation.

Marriage and Legal Manipulation

Although the Church publicly defended Christian marriage, Benedictine administrators often avoided officially recognizing relationships between enslaved people from different plantations.

The reason was economic.

A child born from a legally recognized union could create property disputes between owners. Without formal marriage, the child automatically belonged to the mother’s owner.

Religious principles were therefore frequently adjusted in favor of economic interests.

This directly challenges the traditional narrative that Church institutions always operated according to purely spiritual values.

The Difficulty of Manumission

For enslaved individuals owned by private masters, negotiating freedom often depended on the will of a single person.

“Slaves of religion,” however, faced:

  • institutional bureaucracy;
  • collective administrative decisions;
  • official documentation processes;
  • formal authorization systems.

The institution was more rigid and less emotional.

The enslaved person was not negotiating with a man.

They were negotiating with an administrative machine.

Early Emancipation in 1871

Paradoxically, several religious orders freed enslaved populations before Brazil’s official abolition of slavery in 1888.

The reasons, however, were not purely humanitarian.

Researchers point to factors such as:

  • political pressure;
  • public criticism;
  • fear of state intervention;
  • rising economic costs;
  • property disputes involving the imperial government.

In 1869, legislation required religious institutions to emancipate enslaved individuals within ten years.

The Benedictines strategically anticipated the deadline.

The Global Phenomenon of “Slaves of Religion”

Latin America

Throughout Spanish America:

  • Catholic missions exploited Indigenous labor;
  • Jesuit reductions maintained rigid social control;
  • Native populations were subjected to forced catechization.

In Peru, Mexico, Bolivia, and Paraguay, churches accumulated:

  • land;
  • mining operations;
  • Indigenous labor systems;
  • political influence.

The United States and North America

Recent research in the United States has demonstrated that:

  • religious universities owned enslaved people;
  • Catholic dioceses profited from plantations;
  • Protestant churches used biblical arguments to justify slavery.

Jesuit orders in the United States sold hundreds of enslaved individuals during the nineteenth century in order to finance educational institutions.

Georgetown University has formally acknowledged its historical ties to slavery.

Europe and the Financing of the Slave Trade

In Europe:

  • Church-connected financial institutions funded colonial expeditions;
  • religious authorities legitimized colonial expansion;
  • papal decrees authorized the enslavement of African and Indigenous populations.

Historical documents such as:

  • Dum Diversas (1452);
  • Romanus Pontifex (1455);

provided theological justification for conquest and slavery.

Slavery, Christianity, and Biblical Justifications

For centuries, religious interpretations were used to justify:

  • racial hierarchy;
  • servitude;
  • colonial domination;
  • human inequality.

Biblical passages were frequently invoked to defend:

  • obedience to masters;
  • the supposed inferiority of certain peoples;
  • slavery as divine punishment or destiny.

At the same time, enslaved populations often reinterpreted Christianity as a tool of spiritual resistance.

This gave rise to:

  • syncretic traditions;
  • Black religious brotherhoods;
  • hybrid spiritual systems;
  • Afro-Christian religious expressions.

International Books Related to Religion and Slavery

North America

  • Slave Religion — Albert J. Raboteau
  • Christian Slavery — Katharine Gerbner
  • The Color of Christ — Edward J. Blum

Europe

  • The Church and Slavery — Eric Williams
  • Slavery and the Catholic Church — John Francis Maxwell

Latin America

  • Os Escravos do Santo — Robson Pedrosa Costa
  • A Morte é uma Festa — João José Reis

Documentaries and Audiovisual Productions

Brazil

  • Menino 23 — investigation into slavery and racial ideology;
  • Vista Minha Pele — structural racism;
  • documentary series on slavery produced by Brazilian networks such as TV Cultura and GloboNews.

United States

  • 12 Years a Slave
  • Amistad
  • PBS documentaries on American slavery.

Europe

  • BBC documentaries on colonialism and the Atlantic slave trade;
  • French productions about Haiti and colonial slavery.

Reflection

The case of the “slaves of religion” exposes one of the greatest contradictions in Western civilization:

institutions officially devoted to compassion, salvation, and spiritual morality actively participated in industrial-scale human exploitation.

Religion did not invent slavery.

But religious institutions frequently legitimized, organized, and perpetuated it.

Contemporary historical research continues dismantling romanticized narratives surrounding religious institutions, revealing:

  • sophisticated economic systems;
  • administrative strategies;
  • rationalized violence;
  • spiritual manipulation;
  • collective psychological control.

It also demonstrates that slavery was never merely an economic structure.

It was simultaneously:

  • cultural;
  • religious;
  • ideological;
  • psychological.

Conclusion

Slaves of Religion represents an important historical contribution toward understanding the relationship between faith, power, and slavery in both Brazil and the wider world.

The work of Vitor Hugo Monteiro Franco reveals the profound involvement of religious institutions in the construction of the Atlantic slave system.

The subject broadens the debate surrounding:

  • historical memory;
  • institutional responsibility;
  • religious colonialism;
  • structural racism;
  • the ethics of spiritual institutions.

More than revisiting the past, the topic forces contemporary societies to confront uncomfortable questions:

  • How did religious systems legitimize dehumanization?
  • To what extent can spiritual structures become political instruments?
  • How does the legacy of slavery continue shaping modern inequality?

Studying the “slaves of religion” means investigating not only historical archives, but also the moral foundations of modern civilization itself.

Bibliography — ABNT Format

FRANCO, Vitor Hugo Monteiro. Escravos da Religião. Curitiba: Appris, 2026.

COSTA, Robson Pedrosa. Os Escravos do Santo. Recife: Editora UFPE, 2021.

REIS, João José. A morte é uma festa. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1991.

RABOTEAU, Albert J. Slave Religion: The “Invisible Institution” in the Antebellum South. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978.

GERBNER, Katharine. Christian Slavery: Conversion and Race in the Protestant Atlantic World. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018.

MAXWELL, John Francis. Slavery and the Catholic Church. Chichester: Barry Rose Publishers, 1975.

WILLIAMS, Eric. Capitalism and Slavery. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1944.

DAVIS, David Brion. The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1966.

BLACKBURN, Robin. The Making of New World Slavery. London: Verso, 1997.

ELKINS, Stanley. Slavery. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959.

BETHELL, Leslie. A Abolição do Comércio Brasileiro de Escravos. Brasília: Senado Federal, 2002.

FREYRE, Gilberto. Casa-Grande & Senzala. Rio de Janeiro: Record, 1933.

MOURA, Clóvis. Rebeliões da Senzala. São Paulo: Zumbi, 1959.

ALENCASTRO, Luiz Felipe de. O Trato dos Viventes. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2000.

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